Timberland, the maker of hiking boots and other outdoor gear, is shuttering its stores across India after it failed to make inroads in the local market due to the presence of a similar local brand Woodland. “By March 2015, we would have closed all the Timberland stores in India,” said Darshan Mehta, chief executive officer of Reliance Brands Ltd, a retail subsidiary of conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which got the US brand to India in 2009 in a distribution and licensee agreement with The Timberland Co., a subsidiary of VF Corp.

Since August 2008, Timberland, identified by its tree logo, and Woodland, which also has a tree logo, have been engaged in a court case over intellectual property as the two have similar logos and products. The Timberland Company was born in the 1970s after its promoting family changed the name of their existing shoe company. Woodland was launched by Aero Shoes in the 1990s. In January 2013, the two brands decided to co-exist in India and other international markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe and Middle East where they compete.

“Woodland also plans to enter into new markets where Timberland already exists,” said Harkirat Singh, managing director of Aero Group that owns the Woodland brand. “When we entered into the agreement with Timberland, we knew they were having intellectual property (IP) issues with Woodland. They had assured us that they would take care of them. But that has not happened,” said Mehta while pointing out that both Timberland and Woodland have nearly identical store designs, similar communication and marketing, and even similar products and logos.

However, Woodland costs just about a third of similar Timberland products and this has caused the brand to suffer in India. Aero is also involved in another intellectual property dispute over the design of a classic sling bag with Hidesign India Pvt. Ltd. The latter claims the design as its own and accuses Aero of copying it. Aero has filed a Rs.10 crore defamation suit in the Delhi high court against Hidesign and also The Economic Times, financial newspaper owned by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, that carried the news. The US-based VF Corp. also has brands such as Lee and Wrangler. Mint was unable to ascertain what VF Corp. plans to do with the brand post the lapse of the partnership with Reliance Brands. According to Mehta, the brand will not continue operations in the Indian market.

At its peak, Timberland had 14 stores in India, seven standalone ones and seven shop-in-shops. Reliance Brands, which has 14 brands in its portfolio including Paul and Shark, Thomas Pink, Diesel and Kenneth Cole stopped expanding its Timberland chain two years ago. Woodland has 500 stores and is adding another 60 stores this year. It also sells through 4,000 shop-in-shops in departmental stores like Lifestyle and in other multi-brand retail showrooms, said Singh. “We are bullish about the outdoor sports category,” added Singh, who is looking at a 30% growth in revenue—from Rs.1,000 crore for the fiscal year ended March 2014 to Rs.1,300 crore in fiscal 2015. He did not share the profit figures of the privately held company. Footwear is a Rs.30,000 crore market in India growing at the rate of 15% per annum, according to Wazir Advisors, a retail consulting firm.